Comment · Thu, August 11, 2016 · Ceretropic & Nootropics Depot
Why should I spend additional money on suppliers that charge more than powdercity?
Original post in this thread
8-7-16 · 0 points
For example, New Star Nootropics and Nootropics Depot both charge more than PC. If all the products are really the same quality, than how do NSN and ND even stay in business if they can't compete with PC's prices?
What they were answering
i11uminati · 1 points
It's not that we are skimping on anything. It's that we get creative with supply chains, and use volume to help bring costs down. For us in particular, Ceretropic's revenue pretty much subsidized Nootropics Depot till very recently. Shit is expensive, and I still have about a million dollars in equipment we need.
Right on! I often wonder if I would do it again knowing it would be this hard to turn a profit. I'm learning some hard lessons about controlling cash flow. You probably already know this, but leasing is great for equipment when possible.
It's surprising your lot sizes are so low, though. I would have thought they would be a lot higher than that. It would be interesting to see your operation.
I don't mind sharing some of the processes since they aren't exactly revolutionary trade secrets. It's very manual currently:
We refer to our finished goods "lots" as batches and each raw material shipment as a lot. Otherwise the semantics get confusing if we refer to both raws and finished goods as lots.
50 is the average batch size, but it can go up to around 300 units, depending on the Production Associate's shift and SKU demand. The bottleneck to the 300 unit limit is that we have to produce each bath on the same day. Otherwise, we would lose manufacturing date tractability if we staggered batches over multiple dates. And we would lose Production Associate accountabilit…
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic & Nootropics Depot
Right on! I often wonder if I would do it again knowing it would be this hard to turn a profit. I'm learning some hard lessons about controlling cash flow. You probably already know this, but leasing is great for equipment when possible.
We lost all revenue overnight when Ceretropic got dropped from card processing. It was not a good time. Cash flow is on my mind 100% of the time. Our overhead every month is larger than many vendor's total revenue. So I am very cognizant of cash flow. It's been tough pulling a hard right turn when we did, and pulling ourselves out of it. I'm glad I had a good team underneath me.
We refer to our finished goods "lots" as batches and each raw material shipment as a lot. Otherwise the semantics get confusing if we refer to both raws and finished goods as lots.
See, we are the opposite. Our batches are raw materials, and our lots are finished products. Our lot numbers are created by product, lab station, production tech, and production date. I'd say our average lot size is 200-300. Our automation equipment will be ready soon, though. So our lots are going to get much larger. We'll be able to package 50 jars a minute on the capsule line! Manual production is just so inefficient. Plus, it's hard to hire qualified people fast enough to keep up with changes in demand. Machines can change at a moment's notice.
Our run-ins with the FDA in the past were either due to disgruntled employees or customers, but maybe some were competitors in disguise.
That's never fun. People can be really shitty. We deal with minor FDA snags pretty much every month. Usually they are just paperwork issues, or they are confused about something we are importing. We actually just had to argue with the EPA that our Na-R-ALA was not a pesticide. Sometimes I am not sure where they are getting their info... Your 5-HTP and green tea issue is probably just like that.
Hopefully we're not on the list? Don't worry though, I wouldn't have the time to litigate.
I hope you're not on the list, too! No, these two are probably not going to surprise many that they are selling fake stuff. I've suspected it for a while, but just recently got around to testing their stuff.
The nonprofit has been something I have been planning for a while. A real change to the testing standards in the industry has to be larger than just me. An organization dedicated to that is really what it is going to take to do things properly. It can be done. It's just going to need some people dedicated to running it.
I'll send you an email about the automation system. It's pretty slick, and easy to setup.